Medical images are routinely acquired in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of many diseases. A variety of imaging techniques exist, including, for example, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-ray, computed tomography (CT), ultrasonic imaging, and nuclear medicine. In particular, MRI, X-ray, and CT produce images of anatomical structures, such as pathological lesions.
One limitation of current imaging techniques is that few methods exist to objectively characterize the structure (in the case of pathological lesions) imaged without the need for human interpretation. One attempted method for objective image analysis is the 2-dimensional (2-D) autocorrelation function. However, for a variety of reasons, the 2-D autocorrelation function is practically meaningless in the context of a 3-dimensional (3-D) image.
A system and method are needed for using a morphometric index-a measure of the morphology of certain medical images—that objectively characterizes the images. Thus, a system and method are provided herein for using the 3-D autocorrelation function to objectively characterize medical images.